The present invention relates to the field of instant messaging, and more particularly, to a method, apparatus and system for instant message routing.
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people in which text, speech, and/or video is exchanged. As used herein, IM communications can include communications conducted using a chat based protocol, a text messaging based protocol, and/or a protocol specific to IM communications. Comparing with e-mails or phone, instant messaging has its unique advantages. For example, there is less interference in communication via instant messaging than communication in phone; most instant messaging systems allow users to set their presence status information on the client side to show whether or not they are available; and, it is unnecessary to reply immediately via instant messaging. Therefore, instant messaging becomes more and more popular in web applications and enterprise environment.
A current instant messaging system is composed of server(s) and clients. The functions of instant messaging server(s) in an instant messaging system are typically to collect client's status information, to initialize sessions with clients and to transmit an instant messaging session in common cases. On the client side, each end user can log on an instant messaging system with its own ID. When a user wants to communicate with another user, the source client in the instant messaging system sends a request for communication to the server. The server then transmits the request to the corresponding destination client and transmits response information from the destination client to the source client; thereby the communication between the source client and the destination client is set up.
Users in a traditional instant messaging system have the same capability, whereas users in some current instant messaging systems have unequally capability. For example, in an online shopping center using instant messaging, buyers and sellers are each able to use clients in the instant messaging system, with the former being source clients and the latter being destination clients. A seller may have a plurality of salesmen, namely sub-users, each of which has an IM account number, for example. Where a plurality of salesman of the seller is online at the same time, after a buyer communicates with one or more salesmen of the seller, for example, buys a product, the buyer wants to communicate with the same salesman (salesmen) once more according to a certain policy which might be, for example, selecting the latest salesman whom the buyer communicated with, selecting the currently freest salesman among the salesmen whom the buyer communicated with, selecting the salesman who is the nearest to the buyer's geographical location among the salesmen whom the buyer communicated with, or the like. However, the prior art cannot solve the problem of selecting sub-users out of destination clients according to a policy.